Is Snoop Dogg the new Joe Camel? Is Ronald McDonald? What about Facebook — has that website become synonymous with an infamous tobacco industry cartoon that preyed on unsuspecting kids?
During the last few weeks, these questions came to the forefront in a serendipitous series of jeremiads. First, critics accused Snoop of helping Colt 45 market a soda-esque alcohol drink to his underage fans. Then, Ronald was attacked in newspaper ads by health-care experts who demanded McDonald's stop using the clown to push unhealthy foods on kids. And finally, AdAge reported on three lawsuits that say Facebook is unduly using pictures of children "for the commercial purpose of marketing, advertising, selling and soliciting."
Whether or not this makes the rapper, the clown or the social network synonymous with Joe Camel, it's good news that more Americans are again demanding scrutiny of advertisers that try to take advantage of children.
I say "again" because this issue has periodically popped up in our country since 1974. That year, citizens successfully pressured the Federal Communications Commission to regulate when advertisements could be aired and for how long, so as to prevent corporations from marketing directly to kids. Then, of course, came the conservative backlash in the 1980s whereby the FCC discarded its previous rules and President Reagan vetoed bipartisan legislation to preserve the most minimal limits on child-focused ads.
Thankfully, the momentum may now be shifting back — and not a moment too soon considering just how much is being spent to influence children.
Since the beginning of deregulation in 1983, corporate expenditures on child-focused marketing have gone from $100 million per year to the current $17 billion per year. Because of this massive increase, the average American child today sees 20,000 television commercials annually, according to California State University.
And it's no surprise that such a barrage comes with significant downsides.
Take, as just one example, the consequences of food advertisements. A 2007 study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that such spots, which comprise the largest overall share of child-focused marketing, "are for products that nutritionists would tell us (kids) need to be eating less of, not more of, if we're going to get a handle on childhood obesity."
From that cause comes the predictable effect, as documented by a 2010 UCLA study. Comparing kids who watched commercial-free television with those who watched the same number of hours of regular television, the researchers discovered that the more ads a child is exposed to, the more the child is at risk of being overweight.
Fortunately, as opposed to other vexing crises, this problem can be solved with some pretty simple steps.
We could, for example, just reinstate the FCC's original regulations that limit the amount of advertising that can be aimed at kids. Alternately, we could go further by mimicking the Scandinavian countries that fully outlaw child-focused ads. Or, we could follow documentarian Morgan Spurlock, whose new film, "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold," encourages us to learn from Sao Paulo's success in banning all outdoor visual advertising.
No matter what path we take, doing nothing should not be an option because advertisers are becoming more aggressive than ever. As The New York Times recently reported, companies are buying "the rights to place advertisements in public school cafeterias (and) on the sides of yellow school buses."
It is yet another sign that the corporate campaign to manipulate our kids is only going to intensify — unless we put a stop to it.
David Sirota is a best-selling author of the new book "Back to Our Future: How the 1980s Explain the World We Live In Now." He hosts the morning show on AM760 in Colorado and is a contributing writer at Salon.com. E-mail him at ds@davidsirota.com, follow him on Twitter @davidsirota or visit his website at www.davidsirota.com.
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Last I checked, children under the age of 15 are not allowed to hold down jobs of any kind, and kids 15-17 are limited to how many hours they can work a day, during a school week, and even during the summer.
What's my point? It's not the kids who are buying all these happy meals, cigarettes, soda-like alcoholic beverages. Ignoring the fact that sales of cigarettes and alcohol to minors is illegal, I would dare say the 50-some million Americans under the age of 18 do NOT, collectively, have $17-billion to spend annually. That's $340 a piece, what 10-year old has that much income in a year, besides movie stars or spoiled brats of the uber-wealthy?
That money is coming from one source, the parents. Do parents sit at home, watching loud brightly-colored toy commercials and think "Oh my god, little Susie HAS to HAVE the new My Little Pony figurine that is being packaged with each Happy Meal (collect all 4). I MUST get to a McDonalds!!!". No. Little Susie might be thinking that way, but it's up to mom and/or dad to say No. If mom and dad don't say no, well then, what are we to do?
Trust me, I would love for the government to license people to become parents. Make sure people are mentally, physically, and financially prepared for the burden of child rearing, but we don't, and we never will (imagine the outcry). However, two people have sex, and 9 months later it's the government's responsibility to make sure that kid doesn't eat too much sugar or want to play violent video games or, god forbid, see a naked breast on the internet? Unless people want the government telling them when, why, and how to HAVE children, they shouldn't expect the government to help them raise their kids, and the government CERTAINLY should NOT impose upon parents who ARE capable of raising their child to be a healthy, productive human being.
If you don't want your kids getting fat on McDonalds, DO NOT BUY THEM McDonald's FOOD! If, however, you want to treat your child to a Happy Meal once a month or once a week, that should be YOUR RIGHT! As for advertising, if people weren't buying these products, people wouldn't be advertising them. If Mom and Dad can't say no to Junior, that's their own fault. Maybe they should have considered this before becoming parents, not go crawling to the government demanding that they outlaw advertisements aimed towards little children who have no means of their own to go out and purchase these toys and food products in the first place.
But I suppose it takes a village to raise a child, which somehow indemnifies the parents from any responsibility these days.
Comment: #1
Posted by: Nathan H.
Fri May 27, 2011 1:07 PM
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Time To Crackdown on Child-Focused Ads
The ol' liberal spirit raises its freedom loving head to say "You can't advertise this, you shouldn't buy that." McDonald's and Wal Mart always have big liberal targets on their backs. The children of the Great Society gorge themselves on Big Macs after exhausting their bridge cards at Wal Mart. Let's make two sets of laws, one for the 47% on the government take and another for the 53% (and shrinking) who still elect to live without Obama Bucks. No bucks and Sirota can't be Buck Rogers. He can punish and push around the freeloaders as he sees fit, they will comply because they have already purchased a herd mentality.
Time to crackdown on government over-regulation. Starve government, not children.
Comment: #2
Posted by: Tom
Sun May 29, 2011 3:17 AM
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Instead of the current article, I would challenge the author to write one titled "Time to parent your child." I hate the way modern parents have abdicated their role as disciplinarian of their children. My parents decided what cloths I would wear, what tv channels I watch, and what food I would eat until I was 12-13 years old and could prove I was mature enough to make those decisions with my parents help. I also have to wonder what the parents are doing that actually involves spending time with children. Based on that 20,000 ads annually and an average of 30-45 seconds per ad that works out to 10.41 days a year just watching tv ads. That doesn't account for the majority of the time the tvs are playing tv shows/movies around the ads. Could the obesity problem maybe partly to blame of the fact that mom and dad don't get their little angels to go outside and play, run, jump, ride their bike, or something that gets them moving along with their inability to say no. My mom heard a lot of whining but unless it was a special occasion and she had decided before hand that the family was eating at McDonalds we were not going there. If she knew I wanted a toy and it was a birthday, or xmas then I had to either earn it with chores for my allowance or I waited. Its not McDonalds fault; It is the parents fault.
Comment: #3
Posted by: Lynn
Mon May 30, 2011 6:17 AM
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